Auguries of Innocence
by acidandalkaline
Summary: He will come to know her. She will come to know him. What has happened before will happen again. They would never be the same.


_**This is to be blamed on a number of things, including my moodiness, the winter, my inclination toward dark things during the winter, and Robert Browning. I only do manage to get time for writing on weekends, so bear with me if my updates are not frequent. I hope you like this.**_

_To see a World in a Grain of Sand  
__And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,  
__Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand  
__And Eternity in an hour._

_[...]_

_But does a Human Form Display  
__To those who Dwell in Realms of day._

_Auguries of Innocence - William Blake (excerpt)_

I screamed.

I didn't know why I screamed. I didn't care. All I know was that I screamed and I screamed and I screamed until my throat was hoarse.

I felt something wet on my cheeks. I did not remember beginning to cry. I was not feeling sad. I felt numb.

The waves of pain ran through my body; the kind of pain that is ostensibly in one place but yet is everywhere else all at once. At this point, all she was getting out of me was the twitching of my body and my screams.

Her body loomed over mine. I did not want to look at her face. It wasn't that I was scared of her; she disgusted me more than scared me. I was ashamed of myself. Of my failure.

I had always been able to defend and protect myself. This was foreign to me.

Where were the boys? Why were they not coming to help me?

I looked at her neck and noticed a golden chain. This didn't surprise me in the least; she was rich and powerful and I wouldn't have been surprised if she had a whole chest of the things locked away somewhere.

No, what surprised me was the tiny little hourglass suspended from the chain.

A wave of anger coursed through me. It felt strangely supportive. It felt strong.

The torture continued, though somehow I managed to shove her off myself. It was the anger. The pain persisted. I grabbed her wand, pointed it at her, and shouted, "Impedimenta!"

The spell was weak because it was not fired from my own wand, but it was enough to fling her back against the wall of her own beloved Malfoy Manor. I spotted my wand lying some distance away and grabbed it, then ran toward her as fast as I could and yanked off her chain.

I saw her pulling out her knife.

As quick as I could, I turned the hourglass.

I don't know how many times I turned it.

* * *

My body was flung through an endless void. It took time. It took quite a lot of time, actually.

I landed on something soft and wet and I smelt the earth. I tried to move my limbs to check I was in one piece, but I couldn't. I tried to open my eyes to see if I was in one piece, but I couldn't.

This distressed me greatly. It was one thing to lie on a floor being tortured, and another not being able to move or feel or see anything at all.

I hated being vulnerable like that.

Somewhere in the distance I heard people. I felt someone check my neck, probably for a pulse.

I was placed on a stretcher and carried away to a hospital. My senses were rather blurry, as though I was experiencing the world from the perspective of someone who was not supposed to be there and only had a slight glimpse of it. Through blurry glasses. At times I would hear voices, of the nurses and the doctors, but the words...I could not understand anything.

And I still could not open my eyes.

And then one day, in the morning, they opened, and the first thing I saw was a bird sitting on a ledge outside a window, basking in the sun.

The sun. I liked the sun. It had been a long time since I had seen it.

I smiled.

"Oh!"

I turned around in bed to take a look at my surroundings. I was in St. Mungo's, and there was a very surprised looking nurse next to my bed.

"We didn't know when you'd wake up," she explained. "But thankfully, you are now. What is your name?"

I remembered everything all at once. I remembered how I had gotten here, what had happened before, and I feared what was about to happen next.

"Jeanne," I replied, hoping it was enough for her.

"Jeanne...?" she persisted.

"Jeanne Goodwin."

"I see. Would you like me to get in touch with your parents?"

"Oh no, I don't have parents. My mother and father passed away, a long time ago in an accident."

"Well, you are a minor. Do you not have a guardian?"

"What year is it?" I blurted out instead, asking her the question I dreaded the answer to most.

She raised her eyebrows. "It is 1943. It is August, 1943. You have been in and out of consciousness for the past seven days. Why?"

My heart got caught in my throat.

It was 1943. 1943.

I had gone so far back.

I sat up in bed hurriedly, much to the nurse's alarm. Explanatory sentences began flashing through my head, but I found I could not explain myself to her. I could not explain myself to her because I did not know her or trust her, and trusting people had become ridiculously difficult for me over the past few months. I hadn't been in contact with many people through the search for Voldemort's horcruxes. Just Harry and Ron.

And then the realisation of the fact that it was 1943 imposed its whole weight upon my shoulders.

There was no Harry, and there was no Ron. There was no one else I knew from my time at Hogwarts, and probably no one else I knew from my time in the Muggle world either. None of my friends even existed.

I was alone. I was alone, and ostensibly stuck here.

"Curiosity," I choked up, in response to her question.

"Do you have a guardian?" she reiterated.

"Dumbledore," I almost yelled.

"Dumbledore? Albus Dumbledore is your guardian?" She made a shocked face.

"N-no. He was a friend of my mother and father's. He has known our family for a long time and will be able to help me," I got out.

"I will get in touch with him for you."

She left the ward with that, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

I immediately regretted saying to her what I had. If Dumbledore was brought to St. Mungo's, it would be only a matter of time before the fact that I did not belong here managed to weasel itself out.

_Terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time._

The morning passed uneventfully. Another nurse walked in with some breakfast for me, which I shoved into my face. It felt like it had been so long since I had had good food that I had almost forgotten the taste and texture of it. It felt good and warming.

Soon enough, the first nurse walked back into the ward.

"Albus Dumbledore is here to see you," she said.

A younger-looking Dumbledore walked in behind her. He still had the same twinkling eyes and the same knowing smile that made you feel as if he knew everything you were about to tell him before you even said it. But he was different. His beard was not as long, and neither was his hair, and it was slightly darker than what I was accustomed to. He was dressed in robes, but he did not wear a pointy cap upon his head.

"Thank you," he said in a slightly dismissive but not unkind tone, and the nurse got the hint and left the ward.

He turned to me and I did not know what to say or how to say it.

"Pleasure to meet you, Jeanne. As far as I am aware, you do not study at Hogwarts. Are we acquaintances through some other means?"

"I'm sorry to have bothered you so, Professor. My aunt was a witch, and she had told me many things about you. I had heard you are kind, and that is why I asked for you. I-I did not have anyone else to turn to."

"What is it that you need?" he asked kindly.

I had intended to tell him the truth, all of it.

_Terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time._

Before I could, I lost all the will to and I began to lie.

"I was schooled in magic at home, by an aunt who was also a witch, until she passed away. My parents died some time ago in an attack by followers of Gellert Grindelwald on our home, and I survived but was left alone for some time. I do not remember much of what happened after that, other than ending up here," I said, pausing at the end of the speech for a deep breath.

I began to tremble out of fear that he would see right through my lies. Dumbledore seemed older and wiser than time itself to me, and with him, you never knew.

"I suspect the attack has destroyed my home," I mumbled.

"I cannot just leave you here, Miss Goodwin. You have asked for my help and it would be absolutely awful of me to refuse you any. I'm sure you are aware I am a teacher at Hogwarts. Would you like to come and stay there for a while?"

I tried telling him the truth again. I tried to, I really did. I couldn't. It seemed as though every time I was a mere second away from telling him the truth, something would stop me.

Hogwarts, though. Hogwarts sounded comforting. Perhaps there was something there that could help me return to my own time.

I realised then that I had created a strange paradoxical event, a hiccup in time. I had changed the future, possibly created a new one, and I did not know what consequences this would have for everyone still in it. If Dumbledore knew me now, he knew me before my first year, by face if not by name. As far as I remember, though, he had recognised Harry, but not me.

I was confused, and my head was beginning to hurt.

"I would appreciate that very much," I said, in response to his question.

"Very well then. I will come to collect you tomorrow morning."

There was nothing that had shaken me more than this feeling of complete isolation and loneliness. I had been alone before, but never for very long. The boys had always been around to help me if I ever needed it, to take care of me.

But now? Now what?

I was somewhere I was not supposed to be.

The next day, Dumbledore would come to take me to Hogwarts, and I had no way of getting out of this mess before that, and I had no way of knowing what would happen to me after that.

I asked the nurse if she had found any of my possessions in my clothes.

She returned with my wand. It was something, and having my wand with me made me feel much safer.

I did not sleep that night. Instead, I spent hours attempting to work out truthful-sounding answers to every possible question I could be asked on my background. It felt as though I was losing my mind, attempting to be someone I was not. I could not let go of Hermione Granger.


End file.
